


renascent

by sensira



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Complete, Ghosts, Haunting, M/M, Mild Gore, Possession, Resurrection, Temporary Character Death, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:00:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23018173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensira/pseuds/sensira
Summary: Jaskier dies with no grand applause, no standing ovation, no tear-jerking soliloquy to a rapt audience. He dies eighteen and penniless, hungry and far from home, his last words interrupted and unpoetic."Toruviel," the sylvan says quietly. "No one was supposed to get hurt."Geralt lets out a sigh, long and low.At the edge of the world, a bard dies.His ghost starts haunting Geralt not long after.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 79
Kudos: 729





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **renascent** [adj] - rising again into being or vigor

Something is watching him through the trees. He can feel it’s gaze, burrowing into the back of his neck.

Geralt, in the middle of his meditation, reluctantly opens his eyes and scans the tree line. His silver sword rests at his side, freshly oiled and within reach. It’s early morning, the forest awash with pink light and soft fog. Roach, draped in a blanket, grazes lazily on the morning dew.

There—in the corner of his eye, a familiar figure, poorly hidden and peering cautiously around the trunk of a wide birch. It’s almost annoying, how obvious and incompetent at hiding he is when his body is completely see-through. When it realizes Geralt’s spotted him, it stumbles back, arms flailing, and falls through a bush with a strangled yelp.

Geralt suppresses a groan, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath of cool air. There’s no threat here. For close to a week now, this shadow has trailed behind, hovering at the edge of his camp.

“You’re dead, bard,” Geralt huffs. “You need to accept it and pass on.”

Silence, for a moment, and then: “I understand that I’m dead.” Geralt forgets how whiny his tone can be every time. “It would just be nice if a certain witcher could tell me why I’m still here and—I don’t know? Help—”

“Stop bothering me, or I’ll run you through again.”

There’s a soft sigh and an unnatural silence that prickles against the back of Geralt’s neck. It lasts two heartbeats before the pressure snaps and breaks. When Geralt opens his eyes, the ghost is sprawled across the clearing, spread-eagled and a sullen pout on his face.

Roach steps right through his face.

*

Jaskier had never given much thought to how he would die. Something grand, maybe, for future bards to sing about, or something fun—like keeling over after the greatest performance of his life. He’d be immortalized at his peak, before he got old and—Melitele forbid it—stopped singing original songs.

Maybe he had given it some thought, after all.

Instead, his last meal was old cheese and a mouthful of shit ale. His feet ache and his shoes are ruined with dust. Jaskier dies with stale bread in his pockets.

Jaskier dies like this:

In a cave at the end of the world, bound and beaten, Geralt of Rivia intervenes on his behalf.

“Stop! He’s just a bard.”

The she-elf turns, braid swinging over her shoulders. “Just a bard?” She laughs, sharp. “That’s no excuse. He’s still a murderer, just like the rest of them!” She plucks the bard’s wooden lute out of her companion’s hands and raises it threateningly in the air to throw against the ground. Her face twists, angry and beautiful.

Stupidly, the bard decides to open his mouth. “Not my lute,” Jaskier starts indignantly, pulling against the ropes. “Don’t you dare—!”

Instead of the floor, she smashes the instrument against the side of his head with a solid, heavy thud and a sharp, quick snap of wood and bone. The bard goes limp and still against Geralt’s back. He can smell the blood in the air; hear the abrupt, stuttering way his breath cuts off. Blinking, the anger slowly slips off the elf’s face and something akin to shock takes its place.

Jaskier dies with no grand applause, no standing ovation, no tear-jerking soliloquy to a rapt audience. He dies, eighteen and penniless, hungry and far-from-home, his last words interrupted and unpoetic.

He does not die alone.

“Toruviel,” the sylvan says quietly. “No one was supposed to get hurt.”

Geralt lets out a sigh, long and low.

*

“I am sorry,” Filavandrel says, afterwards. “About your friend.”

Geralt glances over to the bard’s still corpse, slung over the back of Roach’s saddle. He looks small in death, body blue and red, pale and restless. Impossibly young. The remains of his lute poke out of the saddlebags, flecks of blood splattered on the handle. “We weren’t friends.”

*

That night, Geralt uses the broken, bloody lute as kindling. It would be a waste of wood otherwise. By its firelight, he tends to his swords. It’s a warm, humid night. Animals chitter in the underbrush, fireflies flickering in the canopy, the air heavy and clean—no monsters prowling in the dark. Roach grazes nearby, a steady, familiar presence.

While he sharpens silver, a breeze rolls in, too cold for the season, unnatural. The woods go silent and Roach shuffles, anxious. Geralt’s medallion hums against his chest. In the cold breeze, the fire shrinks to a low flicker, nearly burning out. The forest sinks into the dark.

Geralt stands, his silver sword at the ready. In a human heartbeat, the fire roars back to life, flames green and licking at the bottom of the canopy before they settle back down. The forest eases back into the liveliness of a warm summer; Geralt’s medallion is still.

On the other side of the fire sits a bard. A bard that Geralt buried seven hours ago in an unmarked grave outside Posada. He’s leaning back on a log; arms crossed and knuckles white. The right side of his head is bloody and misshapen—a slight indent where the lute crashed into his skull. There’s dried blood caked into his hair and part of his eyebrow, a few specks staining the shoulder of his blue doublet. He looks solid; more than specter, less than a wraith.

Still dangerous.

“Hi Geralt,” the bard chirps, strained and stiff. He looks pointedly at the fire. “Are you burning my lute?”

“You’re dead,” he replies. Geralt spins his sword and stalks forward around the flame.

“What? Dead?” Jaskier sputters. “But I’m right here—”

The silver sword embeds itself into the bard’s chest. It’s solid for a moment, and then the false flesh around the blade starts to dematerialize. Instantly, Jaskier leeches of color, all grey and transparent, fixated on his translucent hands. “I’m dead?” The bard looks up, blinking up at him in pathetic confusion, before he explodes into a shower of shimmering dust.

Geralt sighs and sheathes his sword. “Fuck.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> parts of this chapter are told non-chronologically in vignettes. just a heads up, although i think it makes sense

Three days after Geralt runs the ghost through, it rematerializes at the edge of his camp with an ethereal sigh, hovering in the shadow between the light of the fire and the ink dark of the woods.

The bard blinks in bleary confusion at the unfamiliar surroundings. When he spots Geralt, crouched beside the fire, he steps back, eyes wide like a frightened deer.

“Witcher,” he begins warily, eyes settling on Geralt’s silver sword.

“I buried your body,” Geralt adds some sticks to the fire. “You could have been anchored to this plane by the lute, but I burned that too.”

Jaskier’s washed-out eyes narrow, the flecks of blood on his face twisting as he furrows his brow. “And that means?”

“There’s nothing binding you here. Just pass on and stop following me around.”

“You don’t think I’ve tried?” The bard plops himself down by the fire; the flames flicker out briefly and spark back to life, smaller and more muted than before. Geralt doesn’t reach for his sword, he leaves his hands balled up on his knees, slipping into a meditative trance. He has a contract to finish.

When he wakes in the morning, the ghost is still there.

*

The bard refuses to leave. It hovers in the corner of his eye, trails behind him humming soft, unfamiliar tunes. Roach gets uneasy and skittish when he’s near, sensing something she cannot see. He speaks often, to himself, to Geralt, to the birds in the trees and the fish in the river.

But worst is the quiet, when the ghost has given up on conversation and lingers, silent and still. It makes Geralt feel like prey, fingers twitching and restless.

It’s starting to become distracting.

*

It’s the first town Geralt’s been into since he’s acquired his ghost. They’re in the part of Redania that’s actually pleasant, where rolling fields of golden grain border the river and glow in the sun. The bard is currently making a fool of himself by the noticeboard outside the local inn. He’s shouting at the top of his lungs, waving his arms wildly, jumping around in front of the passerby.

None of the townsfolk see him, they walk straight through the bard, and they can’t hear him either.

Unfortunately, Geralt can.

“Excuse me, love,” Jaskier flashes a strained, bright smile at a curly-haired milkmaid. “You have exquisite—fingers?” She passes through him, rubbing at the gooseflesh that peppers her shoulder after the fact. He hangs his head in his hands and sinks through the wall of the inn with a high-pitched moan of frustration.

Geralt listens to the sound, tries to pick out hints of the telltale screech of a wraith. It sounds normal, albeit, pitchy and whiny, but normal.

“Butcher. Are you listening?”

The village ealdorman folds his arms and frowns. He’s a cross-looking man, born and bred on the shores of the Pontar and proud of it. He looks at Geralt like the witcher is shit on the bottom of his shoe.

“People are going missing on the north bank. Drowners most likely, maybe a water hag.”

“Good to know you were paying attention,” the ealdorman huffs. “And I suppose you’ll want to be paid.”

“Is it that obvious?” Out of the corner of his eye, Geralt watches Jaskier meander down the path. Even as a ghost, he still takes the time to walk around those still living. The bard stops near Roach, who nickers abruptly and moves away, and stares at Geralt. “One hundred crowns.”

“Why can’t anyone else see me?” Jaskier’s voice is laced with barely veiled panic. When Geralt refuses to glance his way, he sucks in a deep, shuddering breath and worries his lip. 

The ealdorman spits into the mud. “Fifty.”

“Hey—Geralt, oh, don’t start ignoring me too.” The ghost steps around Roach, and plants himself next to the ealdorman, arms crossed, and his bloody brow furrowed.

Geralt bites the inside of his cheek. “Seventy-five.”

The other man stares, eyes narrow. “Sixty crowns, for the drowners,” he concedes. “Seventy-five if it’s a hag.”

“Geralt! I—”

“Yes?” Geralt snaps at the bard; the ealdorman glowers. “Yes. It’ll be done. By tomorrow.”

The ealdorman rolls his eyes and turns to reenter his hut. “Witchers,” he murmurs, purposely loud. “Bunch of fucking animals.”

Jaskier frowns, mood forgotten. “Are they always so difficult?”

“Shut up, bard,” Geralt replies, hooking his swords onto Roach’s saddle. There are monsters to hunt.

*

Geralt scrounges up enough coin in Temeria to get a meal of stale bread and hard cheese and a lukewarm bath.

Jaskier, floating up through the floorboards, seems to have given up on listening to the harp performer downstairs. If Geralt focuses, he can hear her playing two floors down, nails plucking on the strings as she sings the same song for the third time in an hour.

“I don’t think she knows more than three songs,” Jaskier complains. “What kind of travelling bard only knows _three_ —”

He stops abruptly, realizing Geralt is chest-deep in dirty bathwater, giving the ghost a remarkably unamused glare.

“Jaskier,” the witcher says. “Leave.”

“At least put some fucking chamomile oil into the bath,” Jaskier blurts out, flushing a desaturated red. He vanishes straight through the wall, and yet Geralt can’t shake the feeling that he’s being watched.

*

Geralt sets up camp six miles out of town within sight of the river. The Pontar runs slow here, lazily winding itself through the Redanian countryside. In the heat of the summer, it’s picturesque, smelling sweetly of ripening grain and wild berries, insects buzzing in the wind.

The water, bright and blue in the sun, smells slightly of rot, of blood and bloated wet bodies, the faint smell of necrophages. Their den must be nearby.

As Roach starts to graze, Geralt sets up camp to wait for nightfall. He starts boiling arenaria and beggartick, slowly stirs in pringrape to make the oil to coat his blade. In the sun, the heat of the small fire is sweltering.

Jaskier is amusing himself by pretending to walk atop the water. He’s humming an unfamiliar tune that’s almost drowned out by the flow of the river. Every now and then, he stops, slightly changes the pitch of a note, or changes the whole rhythm all together.

When the sun starts to set and the oil has cooled, Jaskier leaves the river and lays himself down by the fire. He silent as Geralt works until the sky is aflame, and the moon starts to rise from the East. The darker it becomes, Jaskier starts to look less grey and transparent and more solid; eyes bright blue, hair a rich brown, and the blood on his face stark red. 

“Geralt,” Jaskier starts, shattering the peaceful quiet. “Why can’t anyone else see me?”

The witcher looks up from his sword. “They should be able to. Ghosts and wraiths can appear and disappear at will.”

“A wraith?” Jaskier rockets up. “Like from the stories? What are they like? Horrific old women that eat children?”

“Hm,” Geralt starts. “Those are grave hags. Wraiths are much worse.”

The bard falls silent again, staring up at the sky. In the dark, he looks almost real, brow furrowed and lost in thought.

A drowner groans nearby; the sound echoing off the water and into the night. Geralt stands and blows the fire out with Aard, silver in hand.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says. The ghost looks up in surprise at the sound of his name. “You’re just a ghost. Nothing more.”

The bard gives him an unreadable look and closes his eyes. In the back of his head, there’s a voice that sounds suspiciously like Vesemir’s.

Just a ghost. For now.

*

The bard ruins his contract in Cidaris.

A minor lord had hired Geralt to track down and kill a succubus that had ensnared his son and made off with a priceless family heirloom: an elaborate, centuries old sapphire set into a silver necklace.

Instead, the succubus turns out to be a bruxa, an exceptionally powerful one at that. In her den, Geralt finds the bloodless corpse of the lord’s son—young, a little over eighteen, with blue eyes and dark hair. The blood splattered over his neck is fresh, and stains the lips of the bruxa a bright, beautiful red.

She’s breathtakingly swift, flitting in and out of invisibility with effortless ease, darting and reappearing across the room, behind him, from the side. Her flurry of blows leaves Geralt constantly on guard, constantly pivoting and spinning. She disappears again, and behind, he hears a quiet, intake of breath.

Geralt turns, sword swinging, and comes face to face with Jaskier, wide-eyed and tense.

“Fuck, Jaskier—” He pulls his strike, momentum stumbling, and that’s all the bruxa needs. She opens her bloody maw and lets out a piercing shriek that breaks his Quen, sending Geralt flying into the dirt wall of her lair.

His ears are ringing, head pounding; the bruxa scoops up the sapphire jewel with her clawed fingers and escapes into the night.

“Geralt?” Jaskier calls, he’s fallen to his ethereal knees at the witcher’s side. “Are you hurt?”

Pulling himself up, Geralt is left with nothing but a corpse and ghost. The lord’s son stares at him with his empty, glazed-over blue eyes. “Next time” Geralt growls, frustration and anger twisting in his chest. “Stay the fuck out of the way.”

He returns the boy’s body to his father. Instead of coin, the lord spits in Geralt’s face and is gifted with the sound of a mother’s mournful sobs. The local guards chase him out of town; Jaskier trails behind him, silent as the grave.

*

In the end, Geralt is right on both accounts.

There are drowners prowling the northern bank of the Pontar. A pack of four to be exact, drooling and screeching, long-limbed with loose, macerated blue skin. Their beady eyes spin wildly as they lunge, algae covered claws swinging to kill.

Geralt can barely get a blow in, having to dart back from unrelenting fury of strikes. Knee deep in the Pontar, the river muck tries to suck him in, spilling into his boots in torrents of chilled sludge.

Leading the pack of drowners is, to Geralt’s luck, a water hag. She keeps her distance and mutters to herself, letting her followers do the work. Hunched over in the water, she scuttles from side to side, flinging chunks of mud his way with her too-long arms.

Geralt guts one drowner with a well-placed strike and rips himself from the grip of the riverbed to dodge the blow of another. He scratches its bloated belly with the edge of his sword, and hopefully the oil coating his blade will take to the blood, poisoning it from the inside out. It stumbles, shrieking gutturally and disappears into the reeds. One he takes out with a well-placed Igni, and the last one he decapitates with a whirl.

The water hag roars with rage and lumbers towards him. Her white eyes loll, frantically trying to keep track of him. One-on-one, it’s easier than the drowners; she’s clumsier, less nimble. Geralt embeds her sword into her jaw. As she dies, she spits a torrent of mud and water into his face, burning his eyes and drowning him in a torrent of reeking green liquid.

Choking and blind, the weight of her corpse drags Geralt down, stumbling into the river. A chattering growl sounds from the tall reeds on the bank.

“Geralt!” Jaskier’s voice rings clear across the water. “Behind you!”

Blinking mud out of his eyes, the witcher throws himself to the side, falling into the water. The last remaining drowner flies past him, shrieking. Geralt’s sword slides out of the water hag with a loud squelch and buries itself in the blue forehead of the necrophage.

Jaskier glows in the moonlight, standing on the highest point of the shore. Geralt wipes mud off of his face, meets the ghost’s gaze, and gives him a slight nod.

The bard’s face splits into a grin and he vanishes, reappearing atop the water and peering down at the gaping maw of the water hag.

“What on earth is _that?”_ He gags. “Ugh, the songs you could write _._ ”

Geralt rolls his eyes, pulls out his dagger, and gets to work.

*

In Crow’s Perch, the notice board is clear. No contracts, and Geralt’s coin purse is distressingly light. He’s in desperate need of a bath, caked in mud and rotfiend viscera, low on food, and his left pauldron needs to be repaired.

“There’s a man in the tavern,” Jaskier materializes suddenly through the wood. Geralt’s instincts flare, but he keeps his sword hand still; he’s getting better. “A guard. Says the Baron is looking to pay one hundred crowns for someone to track down and kill his wife’s lover. You should take it.” 

“No.”

Jaskier blinks. “But you need the money.”

Geralt looks at the bard’s wide eyes, the blood dried on his right temple, the delicate embroidery of his doublet.

“I only kill monsters.”

*

He presents two decapitated heads to the ealdorman: one drowner, and the grave hag. The man blanches at the sight, as black blood drips down towards the ground. 

“Put those away,” the ealdorman groans in dismay. He turns, face green, “I’ll get your coin.”

When he emerges, he tosses a tied-up kerchief that jingles softly with coin. Geralt catches it in his free hand, feeling the weight. It’s lighter than it should be. With a frown, he drops the heads, which loll listlessly on the hill. The bag is too light in his hand; Geralt knows what seventy-five crowns feels like.

“We agreed on seventy-five,” he says.

The ealdorman smiles, too wide, shifts his weight, and rests his hand on his hip, securely gripping a fat leather coin pouch. “I gave you twice more than our village butcher makes. You should be content with that, witcher.”

“We agreed,” Geralt repeats, slow. “On seventy-five.”

“You’re lucky I gave you anything at all, butcher,” the ealdorman spits onto Geralt’s mudcaked boots, arrogantly bold.

“Try being nicer. Smile. Maybe it’ll help the bastard understand,” Jaskier comments dryly, catching Geralt’s eye. He is very determinedly trying to lift an apple from a nearby market stall. It slips uselessly through his delicate fingers, and Geralt is grotesquely fascinated by the futility of it all. 

The ealdorman snaps his fingers in Geralt’s face. “Hey butcher—you’d think if you wanted to be paid, you’d pay attention—!”

“I’m not here to be nice,” he says to Jaskier; the ealdorman steps back. “I’m here to get paid.” Geralt bares his teeth in a frightening, forced grin, teeth sharp and bright. The ealdorman immediately hands over his entire coin purse into Geralt’s open palm with an audible gulp and runs inside.

“I didn’t mean like that,” Jaskier crinkles his nose and walks through the fruit stall. “Although, I guess it works.”

Geralt buys an apple for Roach on his way out of the village. She eats it happily from his palm, not minding Jaskier’s presence. The bard is crouched down, peering at the yellow flowers blooming outside the stable.

“I’m sorry,” the ghost begins.

Geralt mounts Roach’s saddle, urges her into a slow trot. “Why.”

“That people are so rude,” Jaskier walks alongside, shimmering in the sunlight. 

The witcher stays silent; there’s nothing to say. Commonfolk have never liked witchers, and they seem to dislike Geralt even more so.

“If I was alive,” Jaskier says, wistfully. “I could be your barker. Change the public’s opinion on you.”

“You’d make it worse.”

“What?” Jaskier sputters. “I’m a good singer!”

“The drivel you sang at Posada says otherwise.”

Jaskier winces and sighs. The entire motion seems entirely too defensive. “I’ll admit, that wasn’t my best song, _but—_ ah if only I had my lute I could—! _”_

A woman, hanging up her linens to dry, stares in confusion, listening in to one-half of the conversation. Geralt meets her eyes briefly and turns away to look at the road.

“I’ll write you a better song, Geralt,” Jaskier grins. “One the whole continent would sing.”

Roach is starting to get restless, ears flicking in Jaskier’s direction. “Hush, Jaskier,” Geralt says. He urges Roach ahead into a gallop and she speeds ahead, leaving the ghost in the dust.

*

At the Nowhere Inn in Novigrad, Geralt has his first hot meal in days. Fresh bread, potatoes, and fish that’s remarkably well-seasoned; Jaskier eyes it enviously when he appears, two hours after he disappeared into the city.

He’s perched up on the table across from Geralt’s meal, eyes shut, and head cocked towards the bard performing at the bar. They’re playing an upbeat tune on a long wooden flute; Jaskier’s fingers drum soundlessly to the beat.

When they finish with a flourishing bow, Jaskier turns to face Geralt with a proud, glowing grin. “I found you a contract. A good one. With ghouls.”

Geralt hides a smirk in his cup of honeyed mead and hums. “Well go on, we haven’t got all night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go. they're friends now.
> 
> here's some insight into my thought process.
> 
> i include a lot of details about combat and things like blade oils bc i have played the witcher games and they are...absolutely essential if you are like me and just honestly bad at video games. all the monsters mentioned here are in-game enemies. wraiths and bruxa are my LEAST favorite monsters to fight, they are so hard and i am so bad at video games. some of the locations mentioned by name in this chapter are in game locations from Witcher 3: Wild Hunt! it's a wonderful game, i really recommend it. game geralt really influences how i write, so i would say i've currently mashed together the characters of game and show geralt, with a bit of book geralt thrown in on the side, as i am currently reading The Last Wish at the moment. 
> 
> this chapter functions as the 'enemies' to friends part, now to lovers haha. i want to say chapter 3 will be out by next week but i have a feeling it'll be long and i also have two term papers to write! thank you all for the lovely comments, i may not always reply but i do read them all :)


	3. Chapter 3

“Would you kill me, if you had to?”

Geralt looks up from his sword, wiping away congealing specter oil and ethereal dust. Jaskier sits across the fire, worrying at the hem of his doublet. The witcher had cut down a noonwraith today, still wearing her rotting wedding dress; mindless and wailing in a field of golden grain. The bard had watched, a still spectator, and had remained uncharacteristically silent for the remainder of the day.

“I would,” Geralt replies. “If you made me.”

“Good.”

*

In Temeria, Geralt meets Triss Merigold.

She walks out of the woods like a ghost in the night, wreathed in fog and power sparking at her fingertips. The sorceress pulls down her hood and a cascade of beautiful brown curls escape, framing her face like a picture.

“So Foltest makes a show of kicking me out,” Geralt lowers his sword. “Then sends his errand girl to slip me some coin to kill his monster. Not very original.”

“It’s my plan, my coin,” she walks forward, barely sinking into the snow. The air is sharp and tangy with magic, radiating out from her in torrents that steams in the winter air. She’s no mere errand girl. “And I don’t want you to kill the beast, I want you to help me save it.”

At his side, Jaskier breaks into a grin so wide that splits his face open like the lute did his skull. “I like her.” 

*

“Boo,” Jaskier says flatly. He’s standing on the drawbridge of the decaying castle, face-to-face with the pair of quivering guards. A gust of chilled wind blows through the castle, knocking over a brazier with a loud clang that echoes on empty stone.

“How many hours?” A guard says, teeth chattering.

The other looks equally as shaken, miserably trapped at his post. “Too damn many.”

“Oi,” Jaskier says. “I’m not that bad, am I?”

“You are,” Geralt says under his breath.

The bard sends him a dirty look. “That was a rhetorical question. This is the easiest way in,” he gestures loosely at the open gate. “Everything else is either underground or caved in.”

Behind Geralt, there’s a sound of magic—ripping through the fabric of the world, and footsteps on the snow.

“You were told to leave Temeria,” Triss is wreathed in blue, bundled in grey fur. It makes her look gentle, soft fabric masking her sharp edges. Jaskier’s face lights up in delight and he materializes by her right side, looking at the sorceress expectantly.

The witcher turns, raises his hands in a half-hearted shrug. “Have you seen these views?”

Jaskier rolls his eyes; Triss seems to be equally unamused. In truth, Temeria can be quite pleasant in the spring. Plagued by newly spawned monsters, to be sure, but the promise of coin only makes it that more alluring.

“Will you kill her?”

“No,” Geralt replies. “I don’t want the miner’s coin.”

“Or mine, apparently. What is this girl to you?” Triss furrows her brow. “Why do you care?”

Geralt looks over to Jaskier, who seems to want to know the answer as well. Silent, he stares for a beat too long—Triss’ eyes flicker to her right, to the empty space Geralt’s focused on. He couldn’t save Renfri; he couldn’t keep Jaskier safe either, but he can try to save this one.

“You first,” he deflects. “Why help Foltest? I heard how he spoke to you.”

Triss is quiet for a moment too long, eyes shadowed by thought. “I’m sure someone as infamous as you has already figured out seven different ways to get past the guards.”

“ _I’m_ the one that found the way in,” Jaskier pouts, as if Triss will hear and heap praise at his ghostly feet. She tilts her head slightly after he speaks, as if she can hear his voice in the wind.

“Well? Let’s see the Butcher of Blaviken get to work.”

She says that cursed moniker so sweetly it makes something ugly twist in his chest. Geralt chucks a loose stone up over the drawbridge with more aggression than he should. It clatters ominously and the two guards on duty flee in fear. Triss gifts him with a sweet, pleased smile.

*

“Tell me about wraiths.”

The metallic hum of the whetsone slows to a stop. “Why?”

“No reason,” Jaskier hums. “Writing a song, thinking of calling it Midday Bride.”

“Wraiths are spirits bound to this plane by strong emotions or unfinished business,” Geralt starts. He speaks as if he was reading from some dusty academic tome. “They are mindless beasts, with no memories of their former lives and are solely driven by their hatred for those still living. To kill a wraith, you first find the—”

“No memories? They forget everything?”

“Everything that made them human,” Geralt says.

Jaskier hums, slow and thoughtful. “Well, that puts a damper on the song.”

*

In the ruins of the castle, Jaskier looks at home.

He passes through the hallways like a character from a fairytale, walking through vine-covered stone walls, passing under the dreamy beams of winter light like a prince in his own ruined kingdom. Jaskier stops to look at dusty, faded tapestries, the ripped paintings, the tattered banners, always seeking beauty in the world.

Here, in a place wrought with death and darkness, he’s nearly opaque. Geralt always forgets the rich color of his doublet, how blue Jaskier’s eyes are, the deep red of the blood dried on his face. He looks real, as if Geralt could just reach out and _touch—_

It takes an embarrassing amount of willpower to rip his eyes away.

Jaskier moves ahead, vanishing into a side room. Triss stops abruptly in the wrecked hallway, eyes flitting around as if she expects to find some unwanted listener in a place like this. Her hand reaches out to grab Geralt by his forearm to pull him into a cobweb-covered alcove. The feeling is almost unpleasant, jarring; it’s so rare that another person willingly lays their hands upon him.

“Temeria reeks of secrets,” she begins. “I could sense them, just like I could these bodies before I entered.”

She pauses, swallows, and leans in to whisper into Geralt’s ear. “Just like I could sense whatever thing that has been following you.”

Geralt moves back in surprise. “What? You mean--?”

“The creature haunting you. I sensed it when I first met you and I sense it now. I cannot see it, but I know it’s there. Is it safe?”

“Harmless,” Geralt scoffs. The idea of Jaskier being dangerous is the most absurd thing he’s heard in half a century.

Triss is insistent, brow furrowed anxiously. “Do you trust it?”

“With my life,” Geralt pauses. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

“Him?”

“Geralt!” Jaskier’s voice echoes through the hall. “I found the bedroom!”

“Later,” the witcher says. “C’mon. To Adda’s room.”

“Later?” Triss echoes. “Have any other crucial information you’d like to share and not elaborate on?”

“Pretty sure Foltest is the father.”

*

“I was a viscount, you know.”

A sudden, gruff laugh. “ _You_? From where?”

“Uh,” a long pause. “It doesn’t matter.”

*

Geralt smells the moment Adda rips open Ostrit’s chest and gnaws at his heart. The sharp tang of coppery blood spills into the air and reaches him one floor down and halfway across the castle. Her piercing, warbling cries are wet with blood, dripping with hunger. For once, his blade is not at the ready. Instead, a long silver chain spills from his fingers, a rare tool from his arsenal.

“She’s coming,” Jaskier says, restrained worry on his brow. He’s perched himself atop a wrought-iron chandelier, hanging crookedly from the ceiling. Out of the way, but still close enough to watch.

They hear her before they see her. Choking and spitting, she lumbers slowly down the stairs, legs twisted, arms too-long, bathed in long-dried and fresh blood. When Geralt steps out of the shadows, she pauses and tilts her monstrous face, matted hair flopping forward to cover her mindless eyes.

She screams, an agonizing sound, and Geralt lets the silver fly. It wraps itself around her torso, pinning her arms to her side, and starts to sizzle at her cursed flesh. Up close, she’s smaller than he expected her to be, and yet, she breaks through his chains in a heartbeat, sending the silver links clattering against the stone.

“Fuck.”

Adda rocks back on her skeletal legs and launches herself forward, flying maw first into Geralt. She scrambles for purchase, panting in his face and assaulting him with the smell of rotting meat. He kicks at her chest, pushing her into the wall, and stumbling back onto his feet.

He glances up for a heartbeat; Jaskier’s disappeared from the chandelier. It’s a moment too long, and Adda takes the opportunity to throw him into the wall, claws reaching for his throat.

The witcher blasts her down the hall with Aard, blowing back leaves and bones with her. 

“Geralt! Are you--?” Jaskier appears behind him, eyes wide.

“Jaskier,” he growls, a warning. The ghost blinks out of existence and reappears on the other side of the hallway.

He’s out of practice, fighting without his sword. Vesemir’s voice rings out in his head, disapproving; he’s gotten too reliant on it. This should be easy. He should be killing her. 

Instead, Adda tries to kill him.

Back to her feet, she grabs him with her long arms, tossing him up against the walls and knocking the breath out of him. The striga throws him to the ground, clambering on top of him, drool and blood dripping from her waiting mouth into his eyes.

“Hey!” Jaskier yells, it reverberates against the stone with an unearthly pitch. “Get your claws off of him!”

All the air rushes out of the hallway, cold and unsettlingly still. The striga looks up, and a low whine bursts out of her throat.

It’s enough time. Geralt throws an Aard against the stone floor, it cracks and caves beneath them, sending them falling into the crypt. The impact has him seeing stars, ears ringing and all the breath rushing out of him. Dazed, he blinks up at Jaskier’s blurred face.

“—Geralt? Please don’t be dead. It’s already bad enough that I am—”

The striga is still. Geralt sees black.

When he wakes, Jaskier has sat himself atop a crypt, melancholy in the moonlight. He brightens up, literally glowing as Geralt rises to his feet.

“She’s still alive,” Jaskier announces. “Unconscious. I’m not sure for how much longer.”

Geralt fishes out a shattered bottle of Swallow, drops the glass against the stone. He manages a nod to his ghost and moves to barricade the doors with Quen. Jaskier, quiet, watches on from a distance. He’s starting to fade, gradually bleaching of color and transparent.

Dawn must be coming, and soon.

The striga twists in the rubble, a keening wail of pain and she clambers out of the rock. She gazes past Geralt, eyes settling towards the crypt where Jaskier’s settled, and she flees, limping on her left leg. She crashes against the barrier and shrieks as she beats her arms against it. Realizing the futility, she turns back to the witcher, baring her sharp teeth.

There is still a strength to her, she throws herself at him, claws swinging. They roll in the mud, struggling. Sword lost in the ruins, Geralt threads his fingers through a wolf-studded silver knuckles and pounds it into the side of Adda’s head. She flies across the crypt, chittering; Geralt sucks in a deep breath.

The sun slowly starts to stream through the hole in ceiling, illuminating the dark with its golden rays. The striga freezes and breaks into a run towards her mother’s grave. Geralt sprints after her, sliding in the crypt mud, blinded by the sun.

Rounding the corner, the striga catches sight of Jaskier sitting on top of the stone lid of her den, one leg crossed over the other, wearing a lazy smile. She stops hard, slipping against the floor, crying out sharply. Geralt throws himself past her, crawling inside the grave and sealing himself inside with Quen.

When she’s realized what Geralt’s done, the striga screams, piercing and loud, banging against the stone.

In the dark embrace of the grave, Geralt takes a deep breath, relaxes slightly.

“Well,” Jaskier’s phased into the stone, reclining over Adda’s desiccated corpse with a playful grin. “Looks like we’ll be here a while.”

Geralt watches his Quen throb under Adda’s furious blows, ears echoing with her shrieks. “Hm,” he says, exhausted. “Don’t let me fall asleep.”

Jaskier leaps at the opportunity. “So, that song I’ve been working on—”

He closes his eyes.

*

“Geralt, do you have a favorite song?”

“Maid from Vicovaro’s not terrible.”

Jaskier makes a noise of deeply offended surprise. “I should have expected you’d have bad taste. If you’re choosing drinking songs why not that one—oh Melitele, why can’t I remember the name--?”

*

Jaskier’s still chattering away when Geralt wakes. The crypt is silent in morning, somewhere, Geralt can pick out bird song, a rooster crowing the distant approach of Foltest’s guards, coming to see who survived the night.

Geralt pushes off the stone cover and climbs out of the grave, pulls off one of his pauldrons.

Steaming in the morning light is the princess.

Curled up on her side, she’s miniscule compared to the hulking monster she had been the night before. She’s bathed in blood and unnaturally still. Geralt reaches for her, hand gently pulling at her shoulder. She’s so young; her face unruined by worry.

Adda opens her eyes. They’re brown, like Renfri’s were.

The princess lunges, claws popping out from her skin. She crawls atop him and takes a messy, brutal bite from his neck. Geralt gives back just as good as he got.

She crawls away from him, quivering and crying, but refuses to look away. Two monsters with blood in their teeth.

The last thing Geralt sees is Jaskier’s face looking down at him, screwed with panic.

*

Geralt wakes to the smell of herbs and smoke, to the dull throbbing on his neck.

“So,” Triss says, mixing together a bitter smelling poultice. There’s a thick paste dried against his neck, masking the scent of blood. “Who’s Jaskier?”

He blinks. The world blurs and spins. “What?”

“You said his name in your sleep, repeatedly,” she raises a delicate eyebrow and rips the sticky bandage off of his neck with a sharp tug. “A friend of yours?”

Geralt looks around the room. Sitting at the end of the bed is Jaskier, who raises one grey eyebrow at him in amusement, relief in the quick of his mouth.

“Something like that,” he says.

Jaskier scoffs, theatrically offended. He throws himself onto the bed, weightlessly landing himself next to the witcher. As he falls, he passes through Triss’ arm as she applies a poultice to the bloody skin of Geralt’s neck; it spasms abruptly, sending the sour mixture of dandelion and garlic onto the sheets. Triss curses, sweetly vicious, and rubs at the gooseflesh peppering her arm.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” Jaskier announces, soft. He’s splayed out on the bed, pretending to tangle their legs together, head hovering near his shoulder as if it was resting there.

“Hm,” Geralt says, closing his eyes.

*

“Jaskier is a stage name?”

“Of course, what kind of self-respecting nobles call their son Jaskier?”

“What’s your real name?”

Silence. Roach nickers anxiously. “I—I can’t remember.”

*

The wind is roaring, whistling through the air. Roach screams in panic, rearing back on her legs and frantically pulling at her lead. Jaskier crackles like thunder, air thrumming with his anxiety, with fear. It tastes sharp and supernatural on Geralt’s tongue, like bile and blood and panic.

It would be so easy to pick up his sword and cut him down.

“Jaskier,” Geralt stays his hand and calls over the shrieking wind. “Stop!” The air goes still, and the bard falls like a cut marionette, slumping into the grass.

“My name,” Jaskier whispers, horrified. “I forgot my name.”

There’s not much Geralt can say, except to sit silently at Jaskier’s side, sword flat across his legs. His ghost remains deathly still, head in his hands.

“Be honest with me,” Jaskier finally says, when the moon is high in the sky and the ghost looks solid enough to be real. “Am I a danger?”

A danger? Jaskier, who knows the names of every wildflower, who constantly hums a tune and asks Geralt to turn the pages of books for him, a danger? No. Whatever he’s becoming? Yes.

“You will be,” Geralt admits. To his side, Jaskier makes a strangled little sound.

*

“I want you to help me pass on.”

Geralt looks up. Jaskier stands there, slouched in on himself and arms folded. He’s subdued, quiet, been lost in thought. “What?”

Jaskier folds to the ground and sits at his side. “Well, you’ve tried to kill me,” he gives the witcher a withering look that feels flat and half-hearted. “And we both know that didn’t work. You must have some sort of witcher trick to—I don’t know? Force a ghost on to the next life?”

“Ghosts are bound by unfinished business. There’s not much to do about them otherwise.”

“Unfinished business,” Jaskier echoes. “I have a lot of that.”

Geralt hums. “You might be able to pass on if—”

“If I finished it, yeah. It’ll be impossible.” 

“Think, Jaskier. There must be something.”

“Let me think,” Jaskier sputters. “I—I always wanted to go to one of those banquets, with the ridiculously luxurious wine— ”

“Of course you would.”

“Hush, I’d want to perform. Sing, dance, eat, the works. But, seeing how you’re the only person who knows I exist, I don’t know how we’ll pull this off.”

“Possess me.”

Jaskier turns so fast he flickers out of existence for a moment. The trees shake softly in the wind, and the bard speaks, so softly it almost gets lost in the sound of leaves quivering. “You don’t mean that.”

“If it’ll help you,” Geralt replies. “I’ll do it.”

*

Geralt wills himself to stay still, half meditating as Jaskier stands across from him. Slowly, the ghost lifts one hand and starts to push the limb into the witcher’s chest. There’s a burning chill, and a low sense of building pressure that reaches its peak as Jaskier’s fingers vanish into his chest.

There’s a moment of peace, and then Geralt’s medallion thrums violently, pounding against his sternum, burning into his skin. Some unknown instinct flares up, choking Geralt with it’s frantic heat. He makes the sign for Aard without thinking, and sends Jaskier sailing across the clearing, panting.

“I’m so sorry,” Jaskier’s faded eyes are bright, twisted with regret. “We can stop.”

Geralt spits, pulling at the medallion that’s burning against his skin. “Try again.”

*

“There’s a betrothal feast in Cintra—for the princess,” Jaskier appears suddenly in a field of wildflowers as Geralt fills up vials of nekker blood. “Sounds like a party to die for.”

*

Cintra’s court is crowded with nobles from across the continent, drowning in a sea of colors and sigils from families large and small. Jaskier, in his borrowed body and stolen clothes, enters with an awed grin, gold eyes drinking in the gleaming stone and the rich tapestries on the walls.

“Geralt!”

A familiar stranger weaves through the crowd, a handsome grin on his face. A druid, named Ermion, Geralt’s mind supplies. An old, dear friend. He’s cleaned up, garbed in gold, beard neatly trimmed and hair combed—a far cry from the usual trappings of the druid. He smells comfortingly familiar, like moss and wet earth, a Skelligan storm and rich wine. Jaskier fidgets in his skin, a heavy ball of anxiety sitting low in his chest.

“ _Jaskier_ ,” Geralt thinks, and in a single breath, the ghost leaves his body. He shudders back into his skin. It’s a dizzying feeling, having his body feel too empty, too big for just one, and—fuck, the clothes are unbearably itchy as well.

“What brings you here? I haven’t seen you since the plague!” Ermion smiles wide, and then pinches at the blue fabric of the doublet. “Why are you dressed like a sad silk trader?”

Jaskier laughs and mouths “ _Exactly”_ over the druid’s shoulder, hovering cheekily above the ground. A couple garbed in matching purple velvet pass by and catch the ghost’s eye.

“I was supposed to show my escort the night of their lives,” Geralt says flatly. “They have since disappeared on me.”

Mousesack’s face twists, brows rising deep into his hair. He opens his mouth, lips wet with wine, and then shuts it with abrupt clack. “I didn’t realize that monsters had become so scarce these days,” he says, looking over Geralt’s stolen clothes. “You witchers do what you have to for coin I suppose. Walk with me.”

The druid leads Geralt through the crowd, spouting off the name and title of every hopeful suitor for the Cintran princess, who sits at the head table small and paler than the actual ghost in the room. Jaskier, ever present, listens in, humming and commenting as if he was genuinely invested every person here. Across the room, a pair of purple Clan Drummond warriors start getting too rowdy with a hulking Brokvar guard. They seem a hairsbreadth away from exchanging blows, and Mousesack tuts, downs the entirety of his goblet of wine, and says, “Excuse me, Geralt. I have chaperoning to do,” and vanishes towards their table.

Jaskier steps into view, hands resting on his hips. “May I?”

Geralt surrenders himself to his ghost. There’s that same sickly feeling that churns in his stomach, the searing burn of his medallion on his chest, before respite. Jaskier crowds into his space, pushing to the forefront; Geralt sits back, an aware passenger in his own body.

Jaskier sucks in a deep breath, sports a grin that feels unfamiliar and strange on his face. Geralt’s body moves in a way that’s inherently strange and wrong, as Jaskier darts around on his feet. They slip into a courtly dance that Jaskier knows the steps to by heart, listen to the rich sounds of the accompanying band, and vanish when Ermion’s gaze becomes a little too suspicious.

In a small alcove, away from harsh eyes, they sip at a mug of wine that burns sweet on the way down. Jaskier’s joy sits at the tip of his tongue and sinks warm into their stomach. It’s disconcerting, Geralt thinks, somewhere between dreaming and wakefulness, to experience such strong emotions, foreign feelings that his mutations register as wrong.

“Of all the things in life—love, friendship, art, and so on,”Jaskier murmurs; in Geralt’s voice it comes out like a sentimental growl. “Good wine is at least number three.”

A resounding boom sounds as the main doors open, and a series of trumpets ring as the lioness of Cintra enters her court. Bathed in blood, she’s beautifully powerful, gleaming in gold-gilded armor that shimmers in the torchlight. Her gaze is sharp, gazing about the room in barely veiled disapproval. She rips off her gloves and tosses them behind her, snatches a guest’s mug from his hands, and shouts, grinning: “Beer!”

The room returns to life, erupting with cheers and laughter. The princess, at the head table, shrinks into herself like a wilting flower.

“Geralt,” Jaskier says into the cup. “Before it’s all over, I wanted to say—”

There’s a commotion at the table nearby. Two Skelligers are at each other’s throat over a manticore, of all things, and about to come to blows. Their argument, loud enough that it carries through the crowd, catches the eye of the queen.

“Enough!” Calanthe roars. Crach an Craite and young Lugos split apart, shooting each other dark looks. “We have an infamous guest here tonight. Perhaps the witcher can declare which esteemed lord is telling the truth.”

Jaskier flees from his body, and Geralt rushes to the forefront. He takes a swig of wine, dizzy, a little lukewarm and sweeter than he would like. “Neither.”

Crach an Craite flushes as red as his hair. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“The Butcher of Blaviken bleats utter nonsense,” Lugos echoes dourly.

“Hm, no,” Geralt says. Manticores have just one sting. “I’m saying the pair of you are too stupid to count.”

Lugos launches himself over the table, lips raised in a sneer. Crach reaches for a dinner platter, thick and solid silver, and hoists it like a blade. Calanthe laughs, sharp and loud; it echoes through the hall and the Skelligers stop at the sound.

The Queen of Cintra grins like a beast, teeth sharp and flecked with the blood of battle. “Finally, something interesting,” she raises her goblet in his direction and nods at Geralt. “Come, tonight, we’ll host the Butcher of Blaviken at my table. Take a seat by my side while I change.”

Jaskier, haunting the dancefloor, gazes at him with wide eyes and a wry twist to his mouth. Geralt manages to give him an apologetic grimace as a pair of nervous handmaids escort him to the dais.

*

Up from Calanthe’s table, Geralt watches around the room.

The court of Cintra is in full swing. The banquet tables are laden with food, creaking from the weight. Scents of richly roasted meats and expensive wine hang in the air. Sweet pastry breads and delicately sliced fruits cloy the room with their sweetness. The ensemble of bards play a vibrant jig, and the marble floor of the chamber is a flurry of movement as couples spin across the room.

Mousesack is pulsing with wine, casting strange and delicate lights flickering in the air to a crowd of enthralled admirers. Crach an Craite, face redder than his flaming hair, smashes the spout off a barrel of Skelligan ale, sending bursts of it frothing against the floor. Their family feud forgotten; Lugos and him pass back a pipe that smells of citrus smoke. Even the Nilfgaardians are getting rowdy; noble, uptight tongues loosening with drink. They leer and tease at the Skelligers, eyes bright against their dark clothes.

Shining like a star, Jaskier weaves through the crowd, a ghostly guest of honor. He spins to the dances with partners that cannot see him. He sits on the raised stage and sings along to every ballad and tune at the top of his lungs. Jaskier revels in their applause, sighs dreamily at the couples hidden away in shadowy alcoves with their hands laced together, listens in on loud conversations and laughs to their jokes.

It’s riveting to watch, a private spectacle that Geralt can’t help but think is a little bit sad.

“So,” Calanthe says. Freshly washed, she looks more queen-like in her velvet gown, but no less commanding. “How does someone as infamous as the Butcher of Blaviken sneak into my daughter’s betrothal feast?”

Geralt scents out a pitcher full of Erveluce, red and rich, and pours himself a cupful. “I was escorting a bard,” the half-truth comes out easy. “As protection from vengeful cuckolds.” Jaskier, as if picking his name out from the crowd, catches Geralt’s eye from the stage and winks before vanishing.

“Hm, I’m glad to be of your company, which could prove handy. I expect blood to be shed tonight.” Across the room, Eist Tuirseach tells a joke that sends the entire table of Skelligers and Nilfgaardians alike into wild laughter. Calanthe stares at him for a moment with wistful desire, before she rips her eyes back to Geralt. “You’ll be paid, of course.” 

Witchers have rules, as much as people seem to think they don’t. No suitor will die by his blade tonight. Geralt opens his mouth to reject the most powerful person in the room when Jaskier appears, blowing out two candles on the table with a rush of cool wind.

“Hi,” he says. “You’re looking a bit bored up here.”

Geralt hums into his drink, pointedly raising an eyebrow at his ghost. Calanthe smiles in satisfaction at the sound and turns to speak to her daughter. The bard sits propped up on the table, legs spilling into Geralt’s lap.

On the stage, the ensemble launches into a rendition of the Maid from Vicovaro; the table of Nilfgaardians rise to their feet in drunken excitement and sing sloppily at the top of their lungs. “So,” Jaskier looks down at him and smirks. “Did you hear how out of tune that bard’s lute was?”

*

The night goes to hell, in the end.

Shrouded in darkness and moonlight, the banquet hall is destroyed by shadow. The food lays in smashed piles against the walls and floor; the finely wrought tables are snapped to splinters, laying on their sides. Quietly in the aftermath, people nurse at their wounds and witness two weddings. Jaskier lingers, almost fully transparent and subdued. Pavetta’s first scream had sent the ghost flying out of the room entirely.

Geralt, ears ringing and tense with exhaustion, makes to escape without notice. If he were a simpler man, he would blame destiny for Duny’s watchful eyes. The new Cintran prince stumbles to his feet.

“Witcher,” he calls. “Wait! You saved my life, I must repay you.”

He’s good-natured, Geralt thinks. Honorable. “I need nothing.”

“Please,” the tone of his voice makes Geralt turn. “I cannot start a new life in the shadow of the a life-debt.”

“Accept it,” Jaskier whispers. “You deserve it.”

“Fine,” Jaskier sends Geralt a pretty grin. “I claim the tradition as you have, the law of surprise. Give me that which you already have but do not know.”

Pavetta promptly vomits upon the stone, choking up bile and soured wine that pools darkly in the creases of the floor. At the sound, Geralt turns and chokes on the smell of acid. Calanthe falls to her knees, her gown trailing through bile, and cups her daughter’s pale face in her hands.

“Pavetta,” there’s a horrified hush. “Are you--?”

The princess turns and looks at Geralt with wide eyes, hand hovering over her stomach. Crown gleaming under the moon, Calanthe raises her head like a lioness, proud and dangerous, anger simmering in her eyes. Even Jaskier, hovering to his side, looks at the witcher in shock. Geralt manages a swear and flees from the banquet hall.

Ermion makes chase, a tiny ball of flame flickering on his fingertips, weaving through the crowd and following Geralt into the empty hallway.

“The princess,” the druid starts, out of breath. “Has immense primal power.”

Geralt tugs his sword out of the bottom of a chair with shaking hands. “Yeah. With no idea how to control it.”

“I’m going to stay,” Ermion starts. Geralt knows the look on his face—he sees the same expression on Jaskier’s from time to time, when the ghost has it in his head to convince Geralt to do something remarkably stupid. “You should stay, too.”

“This has been enough partying for me,” Geralt sighs. He wouldn’t put it past Calanthe, even after the events of the evening, to call her guards on him. “I’m getting out of here.”

The druid’s face twists, frowning. “You’re bound to this now, Geralt. You can’t outrun destiny just because you’re terrified of it.”

“Bullshit.”

His friend concedes, face softening with familiarity. “When that child is born, the bond between the two of you will be extraordinary,” the druid grins, teeth white in the moonlight. “And _when_ you come to claim them, I’ll be waiting to greet you at the castle gates.”

Geralt reaches out, claps a hand against the dust-ruined shoulder of Ermion’s tunic. “Be careful, old friend.”

As he walks away, he hears Ermion sigh and turn to enter the hall. Geralt makes it no more than twenty paces when Jaskier pops out of the wall.

“Geralt,” he starts. “Where on earth are you going?”

“Leave it alone, Jaskier.”

He does not leave it alone. The bard materializes directly in front of his path, arms crossed, and brows furrowed. “You can’t just leave! Your Child of Surprise—”

“Not now,” Geralt skirts around Jaskier’s ghostly form, continuing his warpath through the hallway to the stables.

“But you can’t just abandon them! They’re your destiny!”

The witcher spins on his heel, violently throwing himself past Jaskier. “Destiny isn’t real.” His ghost makes a strained noise of frustration, vanishing and reappearing back in Geralt’s face.

“Geralt—stop! Listen—”

He walks straight through Jaskier’s apparition; his medallion vibrates so hard it almost rips itself off its chain, all the hair on his neck stands straight, skin clammy.

“Alright,” Jaskier snaps. “Now you’re just being petty. Is this really what we’re doing right now or--! ”

“Damn it, Jaskier!” Geralt growls, whispering against the stone. “Shut up! Why is it whenever I find myself in a pile of shit, it’s always you shoveling it?”

“That’s not fair,” Jaskier says, indignant. He flickers in and out of sight in irritation. “How is any of this my fault?”

“I wouldn’t even be here if—”

“If _what_?”

“If you had just _died_ and fucked off like every other annoying soul in the world, I wouldn’t—"

Geralt shuts his mouth abruptly, regret and bitterness pooling on his tongue. Jaskier is unnaturally still, eyes dark and unblinking.

“So, it’s _my_ fault because I’m dead?” His voice is low, cold.

“No,” Geralt growls in frustration, backtracking. He sighs, closing his eyes in defeat and pinches at the bridge of his nose. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“Oh, then what did you mean? Because in my eyes it’s not my fault I’m dead, it’s _yours_.”

It’s a low blow. As Geralt searches for the worlds for a stilted apology, his wolf medallion erupts into a fit, ripping itself from his neck and clattering against the stone. Geralt opens his eyes; Jaskier stands, stiff and blank. Geralt pauses, apology on his tongue, and looks, really looks, and the illusion fades away like fog. Jaskier’s handsome little face rots away in thick sloughs. His skin is mottled yellow and stretched thin like paper; blue eyes turned black and runny from decay. His hair floats in the air as if he was underwater, grey, brittle and dry. Dark bile drips from his slack mouth as his chest rattles, waiting for Geralt’s response.

A wraith.

Some sort of subdued horror that even his Witcher mutations can’t manage to suppress builds up in his chest. Jaskier hovers there, an empty vengeful void. Geralt steps back, grimacing, and swings his sword.

The bard’s brow furrows, parts of his eyebrow flake off and fall to the ground at the motion. It catches the bard’s eye and he looks down in sudden horror, black rot dripping down his face, transfixed by his skeletal hands.

“Geralt,” his songbird voice rasps, rough and rattling.

He swings.

Jaskier disappears before the strike hits. His sword clatters uselessly against the Cintran stone.

For the first time in a decade, Geralt is truly alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow. i have a lot to say about this chapter! 
> 
> first off, I wanted to write in some snippets of the striga episode with ghost jaskier there. i think jaskier would really like triss, and i wish she was in here more but alas, it is what it is. i think geralt would feel more pressure to help out foltest and adda bc he failed both renfri and jaskier in this version. 
> 
> ALSO, i wanted intersperse that narrative with scenes of jaskier slowly forgetting everything that made him human. i think i could have really leaned into that horror aspect of memory loss and loss of agency, but that's for the next chapter! 
> 
> this entire plot point of showing jaskier the time of his life as a way to send him to rest is directly inspired from a quest in the witcher 3! geralt is tasked to show someone's dead brother the "time of his life", and geralt is possessed by a hilariously horny ghost, dances, and flirts his way through the entire wedding party. you can probably find videos of it online, but it is so FUNNY. it's from the hearts of stone expansion pack. so that quest what acutally inspired this story, tbh. i thought it would be really interesting to do that with jaskier. so, of course, i had to have jaskier's end of his afterlife party be held at Pavetta's betrothal party bc destiny willed it. geralt and ciri are fated in every alternate universe i suppose, haha. 
> 
> anyways, sorry for making jaskier a monstrous wraith. i thought it be appropriately fun and devastating. for anyone that has seen ATLA, the next chapter will probably be something akin to "Zuko Alone" except with wraith jaskier. i am very excited to write it. i hope all of you are staying safe in these trying times. thank you to everyone who has left comments and kudos, it means more than i can say. 
> 
> fun facts for this chapter:
> 
> Mousesack's actual name is Ermion, it's easier to type which is why i have used it in this chapter. You can meet him in Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as a very crotchety, nasty forest man. I love that for him. I believe in the books Geralt and Ermion were childhood bff's, or they met each other very young. either way, they know each other really well. i want to say it's canon that Geralt's biological father like killed Ermion's dad, but don't quote me on that. 
> 
> the skelliger's in this chapter are also found in Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Crach an Craite is one of my favorite characters, he's incredibly funny and ridiculous. ciri becomes good friends with his children. him and his son canonically crash a boat into a nightmare ship of evil warriors from another world to help ciri and then fight on it's shattered deck. as you can tell, i love skellige. it's such a fun map. Lugos is also a character from Wild Hunt, and him and Crach have had a centuries long family feud over land, as their clans share the same island. 
> 
> Manticores also have one sting.


	4. Chapter 4

The second time Geralt meets Triss Merigold is in a half-rotted inn in the poorest part of Vizima. He’s paying twelve coppers too many for a room with bugs nesting in the sheets and mold on the walls but it’s the only place in the city willing to rent a Witcher a room. Saving a lost princess still won’t win the Butcher of Blaviken any favors.

Still, it is here, of all the places in the world, that Triss appears before him. Geralt smells the sharp, bitter scent of magic and jolts up as the portal floods the room in bright light. The sorceress is wrapped in a deep burnished orange gown that brings out the copper in her dark hair. She looks painfully out of place with the filthy surroundings, dripping with grace and sweet citrus perfume. If Jaskier were here, he would have called her beautiful.

But he’s not here. Geralt leans back onto the mattress and sighs.

“Geralt,” she smiles wide. “What brings you to Vizima?”

“There was a contract,” Geralt says. “It fell through.”

Triss’ eyes flash with mischief and she folds her hands together. “Oh? You would think with all that extra time one would bother to visit their favorite sorceress.”

“What do you want, Triss?”

Her good humor fizzles out as the smile slowly drops from her face. Triss tilts her head, brows furrowed, as if she were listening for the absent third soul. Her eyes widen and, as quick as a heartbeat, she schools her expression and strides forward across the rotted floorboards.

“Alright, get up,” she commands. Geralt blinks at her from the bed. “I’m sure I can scrounge up a contract for you and your bedbugs. Or at least a lead or two.”

“Triss—” Geralt starts. Magic is bleeding from her fingertips as she draws a gateway into existence. “Fuck. I hate portals.”

“In you go!” She beams. The world spins and settles at a warmly lit solar somewhere in Foltest’s castle, lined wall to wall with books and herbs. Triss busies herself at a worktable, picking up a project where she must have left-off. “Sit, Geralt.”

The air here is heavy, laden with magic and herbs. Geralt sits in silence; it is a strange, but welcome sensation to be in the company of another person again. It’s been half a year since Jaskier—no, the ghost—no, the wraith, vanished. He had forgotten how it had felt to travel alone. Triss doesn’t sing, or hum, or chatter incessantly but her presence is comforting, nonetheless.

Her hands dance across the table, mixing herbs into tiny glass bottles. “So,” Triss starts, she glances up from work and her eyes are unreadable. “There’s a rumor I’ve heard about a djinn.”

*

It is dark and warm. The still embrace of the grave is sweet and soothing, comforting like the womb. In a shallow grave outside of Posada, something wretched slumbers as maggots burrow down to the bone.

As it sleeps, it dreams—or are they nightmares? It dreams of blood and wrath, a woman in a green dress, a white wolf with a blurred face, the notes of a long-forgotten song. 

*

Julian Alfred Pankratz is born into nobility on a crisp autumn day in the year 1222. He is an oddly quiet babe, his mother thinks, that sleeps often, rarely cries, and only musters a gummy smile for his sister.

For a child, he is a good listener, blinking up at her intently when she sings to him. He babbles contently when his father reads to him and stares transfixed while his sister presents the lives and times of her wooden dolls.

Julian grows like most children do, too quickly. By next autumn, he chases after his sister on unsteady legs and his features settle. He has her eyes, his father’s nose, his sister’s smile. He likes to sing, always babbling along to a tune.

Her son is loved, dearly, and he loves so easily in return.

*

There is a troubadour in Cidaris with pretty red hair and warm brown eyes. His favorite color is green and he’s partial to yellow. He visits his mother twice a week to play her favorite songs and secretly prefers the fiddle over the lute. He’s not a true tenor but if he strains his voice enough, he can pass well enough for one. 

If he’s honest, his lyrics are often mediocre, but he still manages to draw crowds. He earns more coin than he should, and half as many critics as he warrants.

And sometimes, only sometimes, he steals a tune, plagiarizes a set of particularly catchy lyrics. It is what it is; it’s a rough world out there. A man needs to make coin, and it’s a hard life for a bard.

His name is Valdo Marx, and during his final performance, he notices something in the corner of the tavern.

A black shadow hovers, inky smoke floating off it in waves. Its face is misshapen and twisted, blood dripping from its open maw and congealing on the floor. It’s mumbling and groaning to itself, and if he didn’t know any better, Valdo would have said it was trying to sing along.

He falters in his song, note coming out too pitchy and sharp from his throat, and his fingers fumble on the strings of his lute. At the discordant notes, the creature hisses, voice warbling in displeasure. Dead eyes bore into him, and all the hair on his neck stands up as hot panic closes up his throat.

Valdo blinks, and the monster is gone. His audience is bored and subdued; the mood of the room feels the way soured wine tastes. The barkeep that hired him shakes his head from the bar and waves him down from the stage.

“Just take this and get out,” the barkeep slides over a stale loaf of bread and two silver coins.

“We agreed on twice that and a hot meal,” Valdo protests.

“That was before I knew you were shite. At least I’m giving you something. Find somewhere else to play.”

He swipes the coin off the counter and takes the bread for good measure. It may be stale but it’s food.

This time of year Cidaris is rainy and miserable as winter moves in on the coast, but when Valdo steps out into the alley, he is met with a thick, cold fog that blankets the back alley streets of the city. It unsettlingly silent; the streets are quiet like the grave and the only thing he can hear is his heartbeat ringing in his ears.

He stumbles home through the blinding fog; familiar streets turn into a labyrinthian maze, and before he knows it Valdo is hopelessly lost. He finds himself in a dead end, hand up on the stone walls to guide him through the mist. There’s been no other sounds of people, of life, ever since he set foot out of that tavern.

There’s a low growl in the fog and something cold looming over his shoulder. He freezes in terror, eyes squeezed shut, as twisted black fingers caress the polished cherry wood of his lute. Long nails pluck at the strings and play an unfamiliar tune. And then it is gone, the alley silent and still. Valdo stands still and tries to steady his heartbeat.

When he opens his eyes, the fog is gone, but the beast is still there, hovering at the front of the alleyway. It shrieks and rushes forward at an unnatural speed, plunging its skeletal hand deep into his chest, nails slicing into his ribcage. Valdo Marx chokes on his own hot blood as something once called Jaskier rips out his heart.

*

“And you have everything you need?”

“Yes mother,” Julian rolls his eyes playfully and grins, pressing a kiss to her hand. “I have my lute, my journal, and a map for good measure.” 

“Make sure to write once you make it to Oxenfurt,” the Viscount claps a hand on his son’s shoulder. “And be careful on the road. Six months is a long time to travel on your own.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m just taking the long way around.”

The Countess Pankratz, dressed in deep green and greying at her temples, kisses her son’s cheek and sends him off into the world young and bright with a sweet tune on his lips.

He does not come home.

*

It takes six years to track down the djinn. Geralt spends the first four months obsessing over it before dead ends, diminished funds, and a harsh winter force him back to Kaer Morhen, defeated. Vesemir spends that first winter lecturing him about the dangers of elemental magic to the point that Geralt considers walking out into the frigid snow and freezing to death to escape it.

The second year is when his child surprise is born, and Geralt takes Roach as far north has he can into Kovir and spends a somber spring in Creyden.

Three years after Triss tells him about the djinn, it starts to slip from his mind, half-formed plans forgotten in the face of seeking coin and killing monsters. He readjusts to solitude, the silence of the road, the scorn of the commonfolk. Geralt avoids Blaviken and Cintra—and Posada too, for good measure—and tries to forget.

Geralt succeeds, for a while. Until the summer of the sixth year arrives. His dreams are haunted by children with Pavetta’s silver hair and the screaming keen of a wraith. Geralt’s nightmares are worse, plagued with sweet songs and blue eyes, laughter and lutes.

He rides back into Temeria and makes his way north, following rumor and folktale alike. Both lead him to an offshoot of the Pontar, where the water is murky and stagnant. Geralt spends three days casting a net, eyes dry and burning for sleep.

On the last day, his net strikes true. Tangled in its web is an old clay marked with a wizard’s seal. Geralt turns it over in his hands, smearing mud and river muck over the surface.

He pops it open.

Nothing happens.

Geralt is about to throw the cursed thing against the ground when the air changes. The breeze picks up; Roach neighs and paces anxiously. And—there, the sour taste of powerful magic. On the surface of the river, a pulsating ball of air and magic hovers over unnaturally still water. It hums and growls and folds into itself endlessly, impatiently waiting a command.

He turns the seal over in his fingers—the wizard’s mark is complex, meticulously crafted, this djinn must be exceptionally powerful, exceptionally dangerous. Annoyed by his delay, the djinn pulsates, and the sound sends ripples shooting across the river and rings painfully in Geralt’s ears.

“My wish,” Geralt pauses, too many possibilities sitting on his tongue. He could wish for peace, but that would be too vague. Sleep, too, could be misinterpreted. He might never wake up.

Instead, he says: “I want to see Jaskier.”

The world goes silent and the djinn’s magic explodes violently in a wave that causes the clay pot to explode into dozens of tiny shards. It slices a single bloody mark into Geralt’s forearm. A storm suddenly starts to roll in, thunder crackling in the distance as tree branches snap off in the wind.

Behind him, an unearthly keening wail echoes across the water. Roach screams and pulls frantically at her lead rope, rearing up onto her legs. Geralt turns, and before him stands a wretched dead thing, rotted beyond recognition. Its blue doublet hangs in filthy tatters and it reaches out for him, hands bloody and black.

Geralt reels back, cursing. Vesemir’s voice rings out in his head: if dealing with a djinn, one must always be specific.

“I want to _speak_ to Jaskier!” Geralt shouts over the wind. “As he fucking was before.”

There’s a horrific silence, and then a gust of wind that nearly blows Geralt off his feet. The wraith is blown back and Jaskier falls out of a sea of thick black mist, landing hard on his knees against the riverbank, shrieking with an unearthly, wordless panic.

He’s monstrous to look at, scrambling around on the ground, somewhere between human and wraith. Jaskier’s long, skeletal fingers, skin yellow and flaking, pull up fistfuls of grass. His face looks human, handsome as ever, brown hair mussed, but twisted with a raw, feral rage. Jaskier’s eyes are black like night, inky and striking against his too pale face, rolling in their sockets. He looks around frantically as if he were blind, black tears marring his face like ash.

“Jaskier,” Geralt breathes, stepping forward. His name is sweet to say, like cool water on a warm day.

His bard shrieks and vomits black bile, curling into himself and moaning out a warbling word that sounds like “No”.

“Jaskier,” Geralt repeats.

The wraith looks up abruptly, and shudders violently, spine cracking and screaming. He flickers in and out of sight, and when he reappears, Jaskier pants in the grass, mercifully human, transparent and grey. “G-Geralt?” The bard says, staring at his hands—each one is caked in dried blood from finger to elbow.

“Jaskier, I’m so—”

“Kill me,” Jaskier shrieks, crawling across the grass like a beast, limbs unsure and flailing. “Kill me, kill me—please. I can’t—!”

He stops at Geralt’s feet, kneeled in supplication. His black eyes are pleading, bright and weeping; he reaches out to Geralt’s knees and passes straight through. Geralt’s medallion shudders and hums, and Jaskier flinches back at the sound.

Geralt swallows pity and it burns down his throat. “I can’t kill you.”

Jaskier goes still. “Please,” he says; his voice is cold, quiet whisper, carried away by the breeze. “It’s for the best, I can’t go on like this.”

“No,” he says. “I can’t. You would just reappear.”

There’s a strangled sob; somehow bitter, sad, and angry at the same time. “Then why did you bring me here?” The bard lurches up, craning his neck back to stare straight up the witcher. There’s something in his eyes, unfamiliar and strange and angry. “Did you want to see the man who ruined your life suffer?” He snarls, and his teeth are stained with blood. “Did I shovel too much shit?”

As abruptly as it came, that stranger vanishes. Jaskier blinks and recoils. “I’m so sorry,” he babbles. “I didn’t mean that—I—I don’t know why I said that.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt starts. There are a thousand things to say and not enough time to say it all. “I’m sorry.”

The bard blinks. “What?” He laughs, high-pitched. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. I mean it’s not--”

Behind them, the djinn rumbles like thunder on a distant horizon. Jaskier stops midsentence and shudders violently, moaning. Geralt swears, he should have specific how much time. The magic starts to fade, and black smoke swirls around the bard and pushes into his skin.

“Geralt,” Jaskier starts, half-frantic. His eyes have turned black and he’s staring down at his hands transfixed in a muted horror as they rot before his eyes. “I want you to know—it’s not your fault I died.”

Jaskier was young and eighteen, dead before his time, cursed with the fate to be bound to the man that led him to his demise. The black mist wraps Jaskier in its shroud and once it fades, there floats a rotted wraith. “No,” Geralt says softly; the ghost begins to scream. “We both know that’s not true.”

Geralt makes his last wish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone! long time no see. sorry about the wait on this chapter. i had become distracted with school and the pandemic and anyways....
> 
> i apologize for the drop in quality for this update...i had written about half of it and then the rest of it about 5 months later. i feel as if i had sort of lost geralt and jaskier's voices and the quality of the chapter jumps around a lot. i think the best part of this is the last scene--which was the one i had written first a few months ago. but as such i feel like i really rushed everything else to get there. when i was originally planning this chapter out there was going to be a lot more introspection on jaskier as a wraith, there was going to be a scene with Toruviel, and more scenes with jaskier's parents and family but i really struggled with inspiration so i am sorry!
> 
> this is really negative so far! here are some things i DID like about this chapter:
> 
> i love writing Triss! In my head she just drips with danger and she's so kind and genuine that people tend to forget how powerful she is! And I also love writing how Geralt perceives magic in a sensory way--if you haven't noticed i focus a lot on how magic tastes and smells. I think this shows up with the djinn scenes as well. Its' something I just think is really fascinating and I'm excited to write for Yennefer eventually. Valdo Marx is the troubadour that Jaskier asks the djinn to kill for his first wish! I thought it would be fun to have HIM be the guy wraith!jaskier kills. In regards to Jaskier's family, I'm so tired of the unsupportive parents trope that I headcanon that his family is just so proud of their bard son and supportive of him in every way. I also love the tragedy of them sending Jaskier off to Oxenfurt for school and him just...never arriving. 
> 
> geralt and jaskier's final confrontation is my favorite part about this chapter. i think it's some of my best work because of the sheer drama of it. also the concept of jaskier returning to humanity but being aware of the stuff he was doing as a wraith is so tasty. the suffering! the angst! i think this got cut out but he essentially was like...murdering a TON of people as a wraith (and i was going to have scenes where geralt actively avoided taking wraith contracts bc he didnt want to hurt jaskier again)
> 
> this chapter might be edited later on bc talking about all the fun things i cut is making me sad. i just really wanted to get this out. 
> 
> i am going to finish this fic! the ending has been planned for a while. i just need to rewatch the netflix series and get back into the headspace for this au. 
> 
> anyways! i hope all of you are doing well and staying safe wherever you are in the world right now! i would love to say that i'll have the final chapter up by the end of august but that will probably change BUT it will be out. i swear. this is going to be the first multichap fic that i finish.


	5. Chapter 5

A red mark scores itself on the soft inner flesh of Geralt’s arm, the last of three. His blood oozes from the wound, scenting sharp and sour in the air. Jaskier’s rotting, wraith-like corpse freezes with his black mouth open and drooling, cut off mid scream as the djinn stirs. It swirls over the water and the world becomes still and silent. Water stops lapping at the edge of the riverbank, birds in mid-flight hang in the air like baubles, leaves freeze in the wind, the black mist hangs over the wraith like a funeral shroud.

There’s a moment where even Geralt feels frozen, rooted to the ground with blood rushing in his ears. Over the water, the djinn contracts—collapsing itself in a tight, smoky sphere—before it explodes across the water and floods the forest with dark mist. Half blind, Geralt steps back as the wraith erupts in a surge of white light that sears at his skin and sends his wolf medallion into a violent fit. The wind whips furiously through the trees, a low roar building as the djinn spirals over the water. Geralt reaches for his sword and shuts his eyes against the storm.

And then, silence. The wind returns to a quiet rustle, he can hear the pleasant babble of a flowing river, a tentative heartbeat distinct from Geralt’s own.

The witcher opens his eyes. Strung up in the air like marionette, Jaskier hangs suspended several feet above the ground. It looks like something out of a fairytale, as the light begins to fade and he sinks towards the ground. Jaskier looks like he could be asleep, chest rising, face flushed red with blood—with life. The djinn swirls in the air and deposits the bard limply in the grass. Geralt bounds forward, ignoring the lingering hum of his medallion and the dark growls as the djinn dissipates, darting across the water and out of sight.

Jaskier had been trapped in the clothes he died in for nearly sixteen years—a teal doublet, slashed with red fabric and stained with his own blood, the same that was caked into his hair and the side of his temple. The sight of it is burned into Geralt’s mind, haunted him for years.

His face is mercifully clean, Geralt thinks as he settles in the grass. The djinn has deigned to dress Jaskier in fresh clothes: a powder blue doublet and trousers that are intricately embroidered with silver thread. The color suits him, complimenting the rich brown of his hair and the red flush in his cheeks. The fabric is thin; Geralt can feel the heat of Jaskier’s skin as he presses one hand to his shoulder, and almost flinches back at the sensation. Jaskier is here, solid and alive, with warm blood in his veins and a steady heartbeat.

Geralt takes a moment to marvel at the sight of Jaskier drawing breath, before shaking his shoulder. “Bard,” he says. Then, “Jaskier.”

The other stirs in the grass, like a cat napping in the sun, before his eyes snap open. Jaskier reels up with an abrupt gasp and clutches at his chest, fingers digging into the fabric of his doublet. He looks at Geralt and screams.

A natural scream, nothing unearthly or undead to it all. No hint of a wraith’s high-pitched wail

He buries his fingers into the grass, pulling at it like weeds, anchoring himself to the world, to life.

“Jaskier.”

His scream ends in an abrupt cough. The bard looks at him with wide eyes. “Geralt. Hello, please disregard that,” he double-takes at Geralt’s arm resting on his shoulder, solid and corporeal. “Ah fuck, please tell me you aren’t dead too.”

“I’m not dead,” Geralt manages. Jaskier’s voice is different than it was in death. The timbre is richer, brighter, punctuated by breath. “Neither are you.”

“I’m alive?” The revelation settles on Jaskier’s face and he springs to his feet unsteady like a fawn, Geralt standing after him. He takes a deep breath, fingers skimming over the fabric of his doublet. The bard spins in place, face turned towards the sun and a smile on his face.

“What happened?” Jaskier coughs, and then starts again chattering like a bird. “Is it ballad worthy, I could write a song—a song! Geralt, we need to find me a proper lute, it’s been ages since I’ve played one. Tell me immediately, I don’t remember anything after the banquet at Cintra—!”

He coughs, once, then twice, then a third time, before his hand flies up to clutch at his throat. A strained wheeze forces itself out of his lips, before Jaskier stumbles forward, breath rattling in his chest. “Geralt,” he manages weakly. He clings to Geralt’s arm like a lifeline, before he buckles at the waist with an explosive cough.

The sharp scent of blood fills the air, spilling from Jaskier’s mouth and dripping down to stain the front of his doublet. It smells wrong, contaminated with magic and bile.

Free from its prison, the djinn is nowhere to be seen, and Geralt’s mouth tastes like ash.

*

The closest town is Rinde, Geralt recalls. Roach, his steadfast girl, moves at a steady gallop. Jaskier’s fingers are twisted in the fabric of Geralt’s shirt, spitting up blood that soaks into Geralt’s back with each movement. He’s silent, apart from his strained breathing, and the lack of sound is unnatural. Jaskier had spoken more in his death than in he has now in his newfound life.

Up ahead, Geralt can see the hints of tents and catches the scent of men and smoke in the wood. He coaxes Roach back down to a canter and calls to the first curious face he sees: “Is there a doctor here?”

“Yes,” they reply, taking a sip of ale. “Chireadan, our elf healer.” They raise an arm and point towards a tent.

Geralt dismounts Roach in a smooth motion and catches Jaskier, who had just enough strength and not enough sense to try to get down on his own. The bard nearly goes sliding into the underbrush as Geralt seizes him roughly by an arm and half carries Jaskier to the healer’s tent.

An elf stands inside, he glances up from a book in surprise and takes in Jaskier’s blood-soaked doublet with grim resolve. “A stab wound?”

“No,” Geralt growls. “A djinn.”

“A djinn? Like in a bottle?” The healer starts, helping Geralt lower the bard down into a chair. “That’s something out of a fairytale.”

“Without the happy ending. Can you help him?”

Jaskier claws at the elf’s forearms as Chireadan tilts his head up to look closer at the swelling on his neck. Geralt places a tentative hand on the back of Jaskier’s shoulder, half-expecting his hand to pass straight through, the burning heat and frantic pulse less comforting now.

The look on Chireadan’s face is pinched, brows furrowed, as he exhales a low “Oh dear.”

“What?” Geralt snaps.

“I assure you,” the elf starts, nervously apologetic. “I received the best medical education right here in Rinde, but these injuries are of a magical nature. I can help with the pain but it would be like—”

“Putting salve on a tumor,” Geralt finishes.

Jaskier wheezes out a rattling no—the sound seems more wraithlike than human and sends Geralt’s fingers twitching. Chireadan pulls away from the bard, and darts across the medical tent to fiddle with a series of glass vials. The sudden loss of support sends Jaskier reeling forward and Geralt’s hands move of their own accord, settling against his collarbone and back, pulling him upright into the chair. Jaskier limply pillows his head against his chest, eyes fluttering.

“If the spell’s action isn’t halted as soon as possible the damage might be irreversible,” Chireadan continues, mixing some kind of potion that smells of white myrtle and celandine. He works quickly, hands steady as he speaks. “The longer he goes untreated, the more likely it is to spread.”

Chireadan glances up from his mortar and pestle, blue eyes meeting Geralt’s gold ones. “He could die.”

Iron fills the air once more as Jaskier leans forward and chokes up a torrent of stringy, dark blood. “Fuck,” he wheezes between breathes, gripping at the witcher’s forearm. He smells afraid. “Geralt.”

Something dark curls in the pit of Geralt’s stomach, fear maybe, or despair, if he was capable of feeling either. He watches mutely as Chireadan crosses the room and helps pour a mixture down Jaskier’s throat. Half of it leaks out of the corner of his mouth, mixed in with blood and spit.

“This,” Chireadan holds up the empty cup, “should buy him a few hours, but he needs a magical remedy. You’ll have to take him to another town.”

“There isn’t a mage here?”

The healer freezes for a half a heartbeat, and the smell of sheepishness floods the tent. “The mayor says they are dangerous.”

Geralt can taste the deceit in the air; Jaskier’s head lolls against his arm. “What aren’t you telling me.”

“There is one mage,” Chireadan pauses, speaking slow, and Geralt fights down the impatient frustration building in his throat. “I was tasked with bringing this mage to justice. But I was unable to penetrate certain defenses. The mayor himself has made the catch and has imprisoned the mage in his house.”

“That wasn’t so fucking hard, was it? “

Chireadan has the decency to look cowed as Geralt slowly pulls Jaskier up. The bard collapses his weight limply into Geralt’s side, smearing blood on his collar.

*

They make it to the town proper by nightfall. Jaskier’s grown too unsteady to hold himself up on his own and rides in front of Geralt on Roach, bracketed in by his arms and the reigns. He’s leaned fully up against Geralt’s chest, the heat from his skin feels like a fever and Geralt can’t tell if it’s sweat or blood soaked into his shirt.

Rinde is a town of moderate size, but the mayor’s estate looks like a small castle, luxuriously large compared to the rest of the settlement. A guard has the gall to demand an entrance fee and is swiftly dealt with by a heavy bag of coin.

Geralt ties Roach to a post and assists Jaskier as he tips out of the saddle. The nearest entrance is through a wine cellar, smelling of old glass and fragrant fruit. Too dizzy to walk, Geralt scoops Jaskier up into a carry, one arm beneath his legs and another on his back. The bard makes a wheezing sound of surprise as his legs are literally swept out from under him and raises one eyebrow up into his hairline.

“Shut up,” Geralt says, without any venom. “It’s faster this way.”

Jaskier’s clever eyes reply, _yeah sure, whatever you say,_ and then he promptly coughs up a stream of blood.

With each step down the hall, the smell of magic gets stronger, overpowering the wine and the blood. It feels like walking into a blinding fog, slowly cancelling out anything else around it until the sharp tang of magic makes his nose itch.

Geralt sees the man before he smells him, rounding the corner to the kitchen with Jaskier in his arms. The man turns and drops a jug which shatters loudly against the stone.

“Ah,” the man begins. There’s something off about him, nudity notwithstanding. It’s the eyes, glazed and empty like a doll. He reeks of magic, and the scent wafts off him like a cloud. “Welcome to my home!”

Geralt sets Jaskier down on a nearby table, reaching out to steady the bard as he starts to topple backwards. He leaves his hand cupped around the back of Jaskier’s neck, touching the sweat-soaked ends of his hair. “You’re the mayor of Rinde? Not exactly what I was expecting.”

Jaskier leans forward, resting one hand on Geralt’s chest, and tries to speak. “May—,” he manages, before he’s cut off by a breathless choke.

“Sorry, he’s in a bad way. Is there a mage here?”

The mayor blinks and turns slowly like he didn’t hear a word. He points clumsily towards a pitcher on the table and exclaims: “Ah. The apple juice! She wants some.” He stills and pauses. “And she always gets what she wants.” 

“I don’t understand,” Geralt says, turning to his bard. “Does he want me to get him the apple juice?”

Jaskier shakes his head, some sort of bemused expression in his eyes. “I—I don’t know.”

The mayor slumps into his chair, limp like a puppet on cut strings. Geralt reaches around the bard and takes the pitcher in hand, making his way to a set of double doors with Jaskier in tow. The scent of magic is strongest here, as mist oozes from the gap between wood and stone.

With the pitcher in one hand, Geralt holds Jaskier up by his waist and together they enter the door. Smoke hangs heavy in the air, mixed with incense and scented candles. The room looks like one used for banqueting, long and wide with large marble arches. Instead of dining, the guests of this evening are mindlessly engaged in other activities. At the far end of the hall, a lone figure lit by candlelight sits and presides like a queen. She must be the mage, Geralt thinks. The sour scent of magic is grows stronger the closer they walk towards her.

Jaskier makes a series of breathless noises, and Geralt resolutely does not glance over to see his reaction as a stray hand attempts to pull Jaskier out of his grasp and into the lap of a nude woman. He instead tightens his grip on Jaskier’s waist, fingers grasping the powder blue silk.

The mage wears all black, from the velvet of her dress to the silk of her mask to the rich midnight of her hair. Her lips are red like blood staining Jaskier’s and her eyes are vivid purple that remain steady as Geralt crosses the hall to her.

When they reach the stairs, he sets Jaskier down on the first step, and the bard immediately reclines as Geralt murmurs a quiet, “Stay.” The mage waits expectantly, one leg crossed over the other.

“I brought you apple juice.” Jaskier makes a pained wheeze that almost sounds like a laugh at his feet.

“You’re immune,” the sorceress replies. Her voice is clear and strong, with a hint of an accent Geralt can’t quite place.

“You must be the mage.”

“Yennefer of Vengerberg.” She spins a cup through her delicate fingers and rests her arm on her knee.

“Chireadan didn’t mention that you—”

“What did he fail to mention?”

Geralt sighs. “We need your help.” Jaskier raises a hand in an inelegant wave.

Yennefer gives him an unreadable look, and then a glance with a hint of dismay at Jaskier’s bloodstained body laid down at her feet, “Just a friend, I hope.” Before Geralt can figure out the answer to that question, she continues. “Your heartbeat is extraordinarily slow. A mutant?”

“A witcher,” Geralt answers, although to many those words are one and the same. “Geralt of Rivia.”

Something bright blooms in her purple eyes, and she stands slowly, making her way down the steps. She gives Jaskier a wide berth as she steps around him. “The infamous Butcher of Blaviken.” Yennefer pauses, too close, flooding his nose with the scent of lilac, gooseberries, and a sharp undercurrent of magic. “I thought you’d have fangs, or horns.”

“I had them filed down.”

She laughs, it’s a sound that’s sharp and pretty all at once. “First time I’ve seen a witcher up close. What little spells can you cast with your hands? Call it a professional curiosity.”

Jaskier’s heartbeat flutters erratically at his feet, and Geralt can already smell the blood rising in his lungs. “Please, Jaskier here needs immediate attention.” The bard in question gargles out a glob of blood which sits ugly and red against the white stone. “And then, if you’d like, I’ll answer any questions you might have.”

Yennefer quirks an elegant brow, and Geralt continues. “He was attacked by a djinn.”

“A djinn?” She glances down at Jaskier with sudden interest. The bard gulps with dismay.

“Whatever is wrong with him, it’s spreading. Fix it, and I’ll pay you. Whatever the price.”

*

Yennefer does not allow him up into the room while she fixes Jaskier, but he can smell her magic as she works. The scent is uniquely hers—where Stregobor was iron and apples, blood and roses; Triss citrus and acid, steel and clear water, Yennefer’s magic is lilac and gooseberries, copper and stone. The smell of it seeps through the floorboards where Geralt paces though the larder, tasting the air for the scent of blood. He strains his ears for Jaskier’s heartbeat, the sound of him breathing, and waits.

A little more than an hour slips by when Yennefer’s steps echo on the stone. She stinks of fresh magic, the sharp scent assaulting Geralt’s nose. He turns to face her—without her mask her face looks more earnest as she stops before him.

“He’s in a deep healing sleep.”

Something relaxes in Geralt’s shoulders. “How long will he sleep for?”

The sorceress gives him a long, unreadable look, eyes glimmering in the firelight. “Long enough for you to bathe,” she tosses a bundle of black clothes upon the table. “And answer my questions,” then she smiles sharply. “I would particularly love to know why your little bardling stinks of death.”

And so Geralt tells her, washing off the smell of blood as she cleanses herself of the magic lingering on her skin, of Posada, of the wraith. His first wish, the second. The last wish. Yennefer’s face screws in disappointment when she learns that the djinn is gone from this mortal plane, free at last from its imprisonment. Dismay rolls off of her in waves, lapping in the bathwater.

“A shame about the djinn,” she says. “The rest of its wishes would have made a fine payment.”

Geralt stiffens. “A dangerous one. I’ll have to find another way to pay for your kind services.”

“Fortunately,” Yennefer begins. The tone in her voice is strange. I’ve determined your company and conversation payment enough.”

At that, Geralt immediately surges out of the water, reaching for the fresh clothes set out for him. He can hear the pout in Yennefer’s voice as she turns in the water, “What’s the matter?” Her tone is playful. “Water not suit?”

He dresses and makes his way up the stairs to the room Jaskier is kept in. It’s a pleasant room, likely the mayor’s before Yennefer commandeered it for her own, with large west facing windows and a massive four-poster bed. Jaskier looks small, tucked into the orange sheets, brown hair thrown back on white linen. Yennefer had taken off his doublet coat, and his cream undershirt is similarly bloodstained. For a moment, Geralt stands, straining at his too tight clothes, and watches Jaskier’s chest rise with frail, yet steady breath. His heartbeat is regular, slowed in sleep, but beats at a healthy pace.

“Do you doubt my capabilities?” Yennefer appears in the doorway, garbed in a gown of white silk and beaded with crystals that sparkle in the candlelight. The ends of her hair are curled with moisture, framing her face prettily.

“No,” Geralt starts, transfixed on Jaskier. “I said some things to him, before—”

“Before he transformed into a monster, you mean?”

Geralt turns and glares at her over his shoulder. “I’d like it not to be the last thing he remembers.”

“He won’t remember much if he’s dead, well, if he dies again,” Yennefer laughs, and smiles wider at his sour expression. “It’s a joke. He will recover. I’m going to get my apple juice.” She disappears in a rush of sparkle and light, and Geralt can count each of her bare footsteps down the stone staircase.

Geralt drags the chair from the vanity over to the bed. Jaskier’s breathing is steady and slow, deep in sleep, and he sits and waits at his bedside. He practices platitudes with clumsy phrases that sound hollow and ingenuine. Planning an apology is far more difficult than planning to kill a monster. There’s a formula, a tried-and-true methodology to it, beaten into his head and his instincts from training and Vesemir’s gruff instruction.

It’s something he was never taught to do. Witchers meet their problems head on with a sword in hand, and Geralt sits, unable to figure out how to defeat this final insurmountable creature.

“I can hear you brooding, you know,” a voice murmurs. Geralt’s head snaps up and meet’s Jaskier’s bleary eyed gaze.

“Jaskier,” the witcher replies.

“Geralt,” he quips back brightly. “Stop looking at me like I’m the second coming Melitele, I’m fine.”

“You could have died, Jaskier.”

“Been there, done that,” he laughs. “Might have been fun to have a second go at the afterlife, though.”

The joke falls disastrously flat, hanging between the two of them like a heavy stone. Jaskier’s smile fades, the brightness of his eyes changing to an exhausted dullness. An uncrossable silence stretches between them, and one of Jaskier’s hands worries at the bedsheets.

Geralt stops and listens. Yennefer is two floors down speaking to a maid in the kitchen. There’s no one else nearby to overhear their conversation. He takes a deep breath, tasting the scent of magic and blood, and says: “I’m sorry.”

Jaskier blinks at him.

“About the djinn,” Geralt continues. “I should have been more specific.”

“Oh, forget about it. It happens to all of us,” Jaskier laughs, the sound a bit strained.

“Jaskier, I’m being serious.”

“The apology is unnecessary, Geralt,” He sighs. “I would have rather been brought back to life and promptly drowned in my own blood than continue on as…that thing. If anything, I should be thanking you. So please stop with the awkward attempts at apologizing, watching it is more painful than dying—and I would know, I’ve done it at least once.”

Geralt leans forward. “You remember it? Being a wraith.”

“It felt like a dream—more of a nightmare, actually,” Jaskier starts, his eyes focus on something in the distance. “I was angry, upset,” his voice hitches. “I killed people, Geralt.”

Silence again. Jaskier’s breathing stutters then returns to its regular pace.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, words heavy on his tongue. “I’m—”

“Oh, don’t start that again,” Jaskier interrupts. “I thought I told you it was unnecessary.”

“Can you stop being so fucking stubborn and listen?”

Jaskier laughs, the sound is bright. “Bold words coming from you!” But he settles against the pillow and gazes at him expectantly.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, and the words come unbidden, like a waterfall. “I’m sorry for what I said to you in Cintra. It was cruel and I didn’t mean it.”

Something softens in Jaskier’s eyes. “You’re forgiven. In fact, if I hadn’t transformed into a nightmarish monster, I would have forgiven you right then and there.” He pauses, then swallows. “You’re all I have, Geralt. It’s difficult to stay angry at you.”

The quiet that settles between them is softer, peaceful; the tension dissipates as Jaskier shifts in the sheets. Geralt leans back in his chair and watches the candlelight flicker on the ceiling.

“How do you feel?”

“It’s strange,” Jaskier murmurs. “A little overwhelming. The smells, the sound, touch. Haven’t had any of it for nearly two decades and now that I can finally indulge again it all makes my skin crawl. Mostly, I’m just tired.”

“Then rest.”

Jaskier’s eyes flutter closed; Geralt listens to his breathing slow. He leans forward in his chair, placing his hand upon the sheets. He counts the second between each breath and the steady pace of his heart.

“I missed you,” Geralt whispers in the quiet, it hurts to say out loud. He moves to stand when Jaskier hums wordlessly, seizing Geralt’s hand in his and bundles it tightly to his chest.

“Missed you too,” he says, half-asleep. “Stay?”

“That song,” Geralt starts, stumbling over his words and the tight feeling in his chest. “The one you were going to write as my barker. I’d like to hear it when you have the chance.”

His bard smiles sleepily. “Go buy me a new lute and I’ll play you your song. Should be a good one, I’ve been working on it for only sixteen years.”

Geralt sits slowly and Jaskier slips back into a deep sleep, their fingers intertwined on Jaskier’s chest. He waits there until dawn, when the sky turns pink and gold with the morning sun and can’t help but think that the sound Jaskier’s heart beating in his chest is the most beautiful song he’s ever heard. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOSH!!!!!!! IT'S DONE! 
> 
> 1\. i can't believe it's done. 
> 
> 2\. have some thoughts on this chapter
> 
> jaskier's resurrection scene may or may not be directly inspired from the the wedding scene at the end of shrek 1. i couldn't resist not having the djinn attempt to double cross geralt, hence why the events of bottle appetites mostly proceed as usual.  
> yennefer is incredibly fun to write, and once again i appear to be fascinated with the sensory descriptions of magic.  
> apologies for no grand kiss or declarations of love. i thought it would be better and more poignant to end on some quiet reconciliation with hints that the two will go on to have a great, legendary love story in the future. i really love the imagery of this quiet, intimate moment of geralt and jaskier in the wake of a (second) near-death experience. 
> 
> 3\. what's next? to those of you that care, I will probably continue writing witcher fanfiction. I have at least two more fics that have been on my mind that I'd love to actually take a shot at. To those of you that like Game of Thrones, I have plans for a large multichap au fic for that as well. 
> 
> Anyways.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who stuck with me and saw this story out. This is the first multi-chap fic I've ever finished and I am insanely proud to have had all of you on this ride. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed. I started this fic in the beginning of 2020 and suffice to say, this has been a wild year for all of us. Stay safe and I wish everyone the best in the new year.

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to originally tag this as dark comedy but my humor is really self-indulgent so that isn't gonna fly. regardless, this will probably be relatively lighthearted in contrast to the fact that i killed off jaskier at age eighteen.
> 
> wow. another gerlion fic. some ghost jaskier fics are around here on the archive i thought it would be fun to explore what if jaskier died BEFORE they were friends. aka. geralt is haunted by an annoying ghost who will not leave him alone!! i think there would be guilt but like...mostly geralt is like "why" and has to embark on a quest to get this damn ghost to pass on into the afterlife
> 
> anyways, this will be a five chapter fic, all of which should be substantially longer than this one. this is kind of the intro, but the rest of the story is relatively lined out. 
> 
> leave a comment if you enjoy this, also feel free to not give a comment this is like...admittedly, a very self-indulgent fic that i wrote out of the blue and my other two PLANNED witcher fics were supposed to come out before this but here we are. 
> 
> thanks folks.


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